According to Audi, the 44-year-old extreme athlete will be a
guest entrant in the race. His teammates will include Frank Biela
and Marco Werner, who have eight wins at Le Mans between them.

Baumgartner will drive an Audi R8 LMS, a $440,000 race car with
570 horsepower. He's being trained by former professional rally
driver Josef "Sepp" Haider, who now directs the Audi race
experience, made for Audi customers who want to try out racing.

In a press release, Baumgartner acknowledged this is a new
challenge: “During initial tests in the road-going Audi R8 I got
to know the Nürburgring, and in the Audi R8 LMS ultra I’ve
clocked a few kilometers on various tracks as well," he said.

"I regard this task as one of the major projects in my life. The
environment is perfect, the atmosphere is fantastic, and I feel
really well taken care of by the Audi race experience. But it’s
also clear that I’m basically starting from scratch because this
sport is new for me.”

The Nurburgring 24 Hours is June 21-22, so we'll have to wait a
few months to see how the experience of falling from space at the
speed of sound compares to roaring around a track.